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I am sure a lot of people would do this to try and get views or whatever on their page or what not, I honestly don't a rats a$$.

I don't know whether to pick photography as a future interest and try to get a job in it. I do it as a subject for school, I get high Bs and Low As and I am competent with my cert 2 in photo imaging studies at the moment, but I really have no belief in myself as a photographer. My mum and family say yeah I have a talent, but i don't see it, i think it is with the whole "your family is there to support you no matter what" type of thing so i feel as if they just say it to make me feel good.

I wouldn't mind some feed back on my shots, they're probably just the typical " I have a DSLR so i think i am a photographer" kind of shots but I wouldn't mind some help.

Devious Comments

All right, I’ve had a look through your gallery. I’m going to be brutally honest. Given that you are still likely a teenager (based on your self-portrait with flaming aerosol can), and relatively new to the world of photography (based on the number of shots in your gallery) I’m also going to cut you a fair bit of slack.

Off the top of my head, you’re not a natural-born artist. But then, very few people are, so that's not a knock against you. You do have a natural curiosity that could work to your advantage, but there are a few concepts that are missing from your work so far. The first is a very common problem among people who are just picking up a camera for the first time (in other words, you’re by no means the only one): conflation of subject with image.

I’ll explain: you think the close-up shot of your dog is a good photograph because it’s well-exposed and properly focused. While those are indeed positive attributes, they are outweighed by the negative aspects: the subject is uninterestingly posed and lit, the background is too busy, and the composition boring. You think it’s a good photograph largely because of what it’s a photo of – i.e. your dog – rather than its intrinsic artistic values: balance, structure, movement, framing, positive/negative interplay, point of interest. Again, almost everybody falls into this trap the first time they pick up a camera; art fundamentals aren’t necessarily intuitive, but they can be learned. When you talk around with your camera, try to quiet your mind, put all your thoughts away and just try to observe the way the world actually looks: the swoop of a power line, the expanse of an empty pool, the contrast of a solitary leaf against a cloudless sky. Don’t look for things to photograph, look for images that speak to you on a gut level. If that means you end up taking a photo of a manhole cover early in the morning with the sunlight glinting off it, so be it. Some folks are going to accuse you of being artsy for the sake of being artsy, but that’s part of learning to see.

Take more pictures of your dog if that makes you happy (and if she’ll sit for you). But when you’re looking through the viewfinder, look at the whole image – the dog and everything that surrounds her. Think about where she is in the frame, how large she is compared to other elements, where your eye tends to automatically move. Look at pictures of dogs that other people have taken. Look at how they’ve arranged things, how they’ve lit the scene (or what light they’ve found if they’re using natural light), what combination of elements – colour, line, contrast, texture, pattern, etc. – they’ve made use of, and try to think about why they might have chosen those elements.

To me, the most interesting image in your gallery so far is this one:

Not because it’s a perfect photo, but because it shows promise. Yes, you were taking a picture of a thing – the sprinkler – but you were also creating an image that makes good use of positive/negative interplay (hint: the sky is negative space), has an intriguing composition (the sprinkler is weighted to one side), and has lines that lead the eye to a clear point of interest (the line of the house eave leads directly to – and is almost perfectly in line with – the line created by the sprinkler spray). But as much as it has some good technical qualities, it also has an emotional quality to it. You’ve tapped into something that has universal emotional resonance: memories of childhood in summertime, the warmth of the sun, playing without responsibilities, the feel of the refreshing spray.